


Fitful Haze

by R_Knight



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Alcohol, As much as someone who is bordering on black out drunk can be introspective, Drunkenness, Established Relationship, Introspection, M/M, Public Display of Affection, St. Louis Blues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 10:40:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19271581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Knight/pseuds/R_Knight
Summary: Time passes. There’s beer. There’s vodka. And there’s tequila. There’s the police, trying to get their bike back. There’s Joel, in another cropped shirt with a stupid hat on his head and a beer tucked into his pocket, the waistband of his pants showing. All of it incongruous with the terrifyingly sweet expression he gets when confronted with a baby. The cooing sounds he makes. The way he looks all flushed and happy and gentle. Robby takes another swig of his beer.(Or: It's hard to get some time alone with your bf when you're a champion.)





	Fitful Haze

**Author's Note:**

> Guys I cannot stress the level to which I do not even go here, but I'm happy for these boys and also I see a man being cheerfully groped by another man? I write the fic I want to see in the world. I know some of the history of these two but not much else, so hopefully I didn't get anything terribly wrong. The style of this intends to reflect the patchy memory of the very drunk - fingers crossed it works!

There is this single moment, shining and glorious, that will stick with Robby forever. The sun beaming down on them, wet with sweat and beer and god-knows what else, drunk on the thrill of being cup champions and also very much on the alcohol they’ve not stopped drinking for a while now. Robby is getting to that hazy level of consciousness where he knows that if he has another drink too soon he’ll go blackout, which is never a good thing anyway, but least of all when you were a semi-celebrity in a very public setting. So he’s on his first water of the day, relishing in the overwhelming giddiness that infuses everyone around him, when he spots Joel out by the railing, in full view of the crowd, dancing and drinking and also in a cropped shirt that says O’Reilly on the back.

It makes Robby pause for a second, wondering first where he got the shirt from, if he cropped it himself, and then briefly why _O’Reilly_ rather than, say, Fabbri for example. He feels stupid the second he thinks it, of course it’s O’Reilly, man of the hour, the day, the playoffs, but the rising feeling of jealousy doesn’t go anywhere. He still wants his name on Joel’s back, for the world to see. He can’t have that without raising some serious questions though. He doesn’t even know where he’d get one of his jerseys anyway, except from a potential fan in the crowd. Whatever.

So Robby does the next best thing. He sets his water down, and he sidles up behind Joel just as he’s lifting the cup above his head, pressing in close, sliding a hand around him to press flat against his bare stomach. He’s not tall enough to get close to his ear - damn his long fucking legs - so he has to yell to be heard over the music and the crowd and the boys.

“Looking good, bud,” he says, swaying a little as he wraps his other arm around Joel, tugging him closer, relishing in the familiar smell of him, sharper with sweat and alcohol, but still _Joel,_ the warmth of his back and his stomach under Robby’s hands. His stomach twitches, and Robby can hear him hum contentedly as he leans back against Robby for a moment. Joel loves this - being held, being wrapped up in someone else, being wanted and loved and kept and it's a thrill to be able to do this in public, suddenly. Like with the cup win, everything is allowed. They could probably kiss and easily write it off as the heat of the moment.

The second the thought occurs to him he steps back from Joel, untangling himself. Sure, they could write it off. But really, Robby wouldn’t want to. So he steps back a bit, removes himself from the temptation. Turns away from Joel’s warm skin and back to the guys, getting caught under someone’s arm almost immediately, and dragged into the foray.

“Aw bud,” Bozak yells, “I’m sure you’re not the only guy to get hard during cup celebrations!”

Robby actually looks down, _idiot,_  and he’s not hard, _thanks_ , but the joke hit close enough to home that Robby can’t quite shake it off. He laughs as best as he can and then he decides: alcohol. Time for more alcohol.

*

Time passes. There’s beer. There’s vodka, and there’s tequila. There’s the police, trying to get their bike back. There’s Joel, in another cropped shirt with a stupid hat on his head and a beer tucked into his pocket, the waistband of his pants showing. All of it incongruous with the terrifyingly sweet expression he gets when confronted with a baby. The cooing sounds he makes. The way he looks all flushed and happy and gentle. Robby takes another swig of his beer.

More flashes: fans, the cup, more fans, more alcohol, the cup again. Joel’s stomach, again. In a club this time, where it’s dark and hazy with sweaty bodies and the CO2 gun the boys got their hands on. Where there are girls at his back and more at his front, pats on the back and cheers and chanting and more bodies, pressing closer, writhing and squirming and Robby gets a wave - just a second, of wanting to jump ship. Too much, too many, too close. But then it passes, and it’s just drunk fans and drunk people who have no clue who they are but want to party with the guys spending money. It’s just his boys, the cup champions, laughing and drinking and falling into each other.

It’s Joel, in another fucking crop top. Grey, long sleeved. Stained from neck to navel with alcohol, which pretty well sums up the state of him, but then he’s being lifted over the crowd, pushed and pulled and tugged towards the bar, where he’s then shoved up onto it. Grappled and manhandled, hands on him like they own him. Robby gets a rush of not-quite jealousy, wanting and wishing he could grab Joel, wrap his arms around him and make sure everyone knew that they could touch him all they wanted, they could be part of this moment, but he still wasn’t _theirs._ He didn’t belong to them like he did Robby. But whatever, they could have him for a little while.

They could have his stupid long legs and his stomach and his weird teeth and his bad facial hair. They could have it all, for a little while. Joel could do what he wanted, after all, and if he wanted to offer himself up to the people, give himself over for their consumption, then that was his choice. Robby watched him dance on the bar for a while, sipping his own drink and just - feeling. All of it.

And then he pushed back into the crowd again, in search of some of his teammates.

*

Later still: flying across the country, heading to Las Vegas. Twitchy with the anticipation of bad decisions to come. Having sobered up briefly before hand, they crack open the beers and shots and whisky on the flight and head back into drunk pretty quick. Robby isn’t sure the alcohol has even had a chance to leave his body yet, so everything is getting hazy again pretty fast. He blames that on why he decides, all of a sudden, that he just _has_ to go find Joel. He climbs out of his seat and over Zach, dozing next to him, spinning around in a quick circle to try and locate - oh, yeah. Joel, near the back of the plane, flopped over on top of someone Robby can’t really see, yelling about something Robby can’t really make out. He carries on yelling, and Robby beelines towards him, intent.

When Joel spots him he grins and sits up, revealing that Brayden was underneath him, dishevelled from whatever Joel was doing to him, hug or headlock or goddamn tickling, who knew at this point. Robby ignores both of their greeting. Instead, he grabs Joel by the face, stares at his him for a second, at his confused and expectant expression - the way he just lets Robby grab him, do what he wants with him - and then he kisses him. A firm kiss, closed mouthed and a little painful with how hard he shoves their faces together. Someone somewhere whoops. He pulls back, ready to back off, but Joel drags him back in for another kiss, deeper this time, more thorough. Licks at Robby’s mouth to get him to open up, but then he goes pliant, letting Robby take over like he always does. Like they both like it. Joel is only ever as forward as he needs to be to get Robby to do something, and then he’ll back off, let Robby do what he wants with him.

By the time they pull away from each other Robby is halfway to sitting in Joel’s lap, and the boys are yelling and cheering and whistling, urging them on. Robby isn’t drunk or stupid enough to think that giving them a full show on a plane is a good idea, so he plants one last peck on Joel’s cheek, ruffling his hair and standing back up again. He doesn’t miss the way that Joel adjusts himself as he does.

“All right all right, shows over, you idiots can go back to what you were doing,” Robby says, then to Brayden, bemused and trapped between the window and the two of them, “uh, sorry bud.”

Brayden laughs, shakes his head. “It’s fine Fabbs, surprised you haven’t mauled him sooner.”

Robby grunts, looks back down at Joel, his pink cheeks and his hair sticking up all over the place. The hand he has resting high up on his thigh, a bad attempt at concealing the half-chub he has.

“What was that for?” Joel asks. Robby looks up at his face, grins at the expression he finds there.

“Maybe I just wanted to remind everyone that you’re mine,” he says, and Joel laughs.

“I think they know that pretty well. Remember when Pat walked in on-”

“ _Ugh,_  don’t remind me,” Robby says, and he sways a little with some sudden turbulence. A voice overhead tells them to put their seat belts on. “I’ll see you later then, eh?”

Joel nods, his expression going fond and sweet, a little anticipatory. “Yeah, babe. See you in Vegas.”

Robby takes that as a promise.

*

Later again; pool side, pouring a terrible mix of various types of alcohol from the cup into an endless supply of open mouths, Joel yelling next to him. He’s stuck close-by since they’ve landed, not saying anything about it, but secretly Robby is glad. Even when he’s got another hat on his head (where the hell he keeps finding them, Robby isn’t sure) and is on a fucking tiger statue with a girl behind him, Robby still doesn’t mind. He sips his drink - something pink that Zach had been excited about, which honestly really does taste good, but in a way that suggests the risk of vomit and ten times the hangover tomorrow - and thinks about nothing for a little while. Joel yells and yells and drinks and grabs the cup and holds it over their heads, making Robby hold it too and yelling some more.

Robby feels a second, third, eighth wind hit, and goes with it.

*

Later, later, later; in a hotel room, someone’s tugging a shirt over his head, saying “yeah, you look great bud, fucking rights,” and, “Eddy’s gonna _love_ this.”

He does. Love it, that is. They have to detour into the en-suite for a minute, just so Joel can shove his hands up the cropped shirt and say, “yeah, shit, yeah bud, _Robby,_  you look so fucking - you -” and then they’re interrupted by bodies piling into the room, dragging them apart and putting bottles in their hands and yelling about _later later later_. Robby thinks that the later he wants is never going to fucking come at this rate, but he lets them lead him away easily enough. He and Joel have the rest of their lives to fuck as Stanley Cup champions, it can wait a little longer.

Even if his dick disagrees.

They leave the hotel, drinks in hand. Head to a bar. Head to another bar. Someone puts their hands on his stomach and he thinks he might yell _I’m taken!_ But it could also be _I’m Joel’s!_ He’s not entirely sure at this point. He dances for a while, drinks some more, kisses the alcohol off of someone’s neck. Makes eye contact with Joel, who is in the process of licking alcohol from Parry’s belly button. He grins, winks like an idiot.

Robby thinks about going over there, offering up his own stomach - easy access after all - but then there's a heavy arm around his shoulder, a strong weight at his side. Pat, rallying like an absolute beauty

“Pat!” he yells over the music, “you beauty!” Pat laughs, shaking Robby and squeezing him in one motion.

“I got you some water,” he says, passing over a plastic cup of water. “You having a good time?”

“Fuck yeah!” Robby says. He gulps down his water, suddenly realizing how parched he is. “What about you old man?”

Pat shakes his head, but he’s smiling. He looks so fucking content. Robby is sweating and too-drunk and his body is going to hate him tomorrow, but he bets he looks just as mindlessly ecstatic as Pat does right now. They are goddamn cup champions. Fuck everything else, fuck everyone else. This is _it._ Robby feels so overwhelmed with the knowledge, with the _feeling,_ that he does the only thing he can think of and grabs Pat’s face to smack a sloppy kiss against his cheek.

“I thought you were taken, Robby!” Pat says, pretending at being scandalized.

Robby laughs. He loves his team so fucking much.

*

The hangover is predictably horrific. Robby wakes up with no pants and one arm half-way out of the cropped shirt he’s wearing, the shirt that in the morning light looks more like a sports bra than anything else. He’s not even sure where it came from to begin with.

He thinks, for a good hour, that he’s only minorly hungover. Then he’s in the locker room, and everything is sort of spinning and the sound of clapping is making his head throb and his stomach quiver and he briefly regrets every decision he’s ever made that got him to this point. He thinks: no alcohol, ever again. He thinks: maybe if I had paid more attention in school I would have been less interested in hockey and then this hangover would never have happened.

But then the wave passes, and the day passes, and then it’s night again, and they’re still in Vegas, and he’s got more beer and more spirits and then - suddenly, it’s Joel. Topless, his belt unbuckled like he’s in the process of getting dressed, knocking on Robby’s hotel room door. Robby had come back to his room to grab his phone lead, intending to take it back to the room they’re using to hang out in while everyone sorts themselves out before heading out again, and Joel had apparently followed him like a creep.

“God, did you follow me all the way down here?” Robby asks. Joel shrugs.

“I knew where your room was anyway.”

Robby rolls his eyes.“That doesn’t make it better.”

“Sure, lets talk about how creepy I am for following my boyfriend to his hotel room so we can get some time to ourselves for the first time in literal days.” Joel inches forward, forcing Robby to back into the room. When he’s through the door, Joel closes it behind him. Locks it.

“Oh.”

“The guys have ordered room service, they’re eating before heading back out again. We have time, babe.”

“Are you sure - ah, _fuck,_ okay, _”_ Robby yelps, because Joel is already dropping to his knees and undoing his pants.

Okay, well. Stanley cup blow job. He can go for that.

*

And a long, long while later: packing up their shit for the summer, a much shorter one than usual, not that anyone is complaining. Celebrations over, week long hangovers just about over, he and Joel are going their separate ways to see their families, but then they’ll be meeting up again, on a flight to Amsterdam. Alone this time. Just the two of them, Stanley cup champs for sure, but also just two anonymous guys when they’re so far from home. No one will notice them walking down the street and drag them into celebrations, no one will ask for photographs if they go out for dinner or insist they have one more celebratory shot that’s been bought for them at a bar.

They can rest for a while. Celebrate together, quietly, finally having each other to themselves.

“You ready?” Joel asks, poking his head into their bedroom.

Robby nods, zips up his suitcase. “Yeah babe,” he says, “I’m ready.”


End file.
